A lot of people for poker at it was really rainy outside; we threw and extra towel down so people's shoes wouldn't be on the floor.
This was a crazy hand. I raised with AK and they both called. The flop was A95, the player with A5 for two pair bet, I called, the player with AT went all in, then the player with A5 went all in, too. I should have folded, with play that strong someone probably have three fives or three nines, but I called and was behind the guy with two pairs. But then the board paired the nines and he got counterfeited; we all had two pair, AA99, but my kicker played. Horrible play by me but I got lucky.
I think four 9s is good.
Our Advent calendars. The $10 one had bigger and better chocolate and a little rhyme behind each door. The cheaper one had a smaller and yuckier piece of chocolate and no rhyme.
Two more pieces of candy that don't work in the electronic candy dispensers: M&Ms and peanut M&Ms.
I bought these little glow-in-the-dark plastic rocks. We put them out on the balcony but they never glowed, so we stuck them in the bathroom and the night light in there keeps them going.
Why would they take up a whole lane of a major road during rush hour? Why don't they just wait a few hours?
It was rainy, so there were lots of accidents.
Both cars are pretty smashed up.
There are a ton of thrift stores here.
Even more. It's like thrift store heaven on this road for a few miles.
Ten years ago everyone made their own computers. Nowadays I think it's almost as cheap to just buy one.
Lots of dance pads.
Some bouncy shoes.
A ton of Dianetics CDs.
That's a ton of packaging for a tiny item.
These fake tree thingies are neat.
I'm not sure that they're worth $9, though.
A burning man attendee.
Another accident.
I wonder if I can get gas for 33 cents a gallon?
Three major ways to get to Lancaster, so I took the left one.
It was supposed to be scenic, but it was so foggy, I couldn't see anything anyway. A deer ran across the road in front of me, too, so that was scary.
Great, I'm taking a way I've never been before on a small, twisty road in the fog and my phone crashes. I was worried if I hit "OK" the navigation would stop, and since it was still working even with the error message there, I just left everything alone.
A cop slowing traffic down. Usually they do this if there is an accident ahead but I didn't see one.
A ton of shopping carts of homeless people. The rain must really be a pain for them.
A giant cricket I saw one morning. It was almost as big as my thumb.
A steep street a bit north of our apartment.
I never realized it was a health net until I saw this.
Neat clouds in the mountains.
More dance pads.
Bad time to go to the thrift store. I have just one item, but since they're having a 40% off sale for only a few hours, people in front of me are buying tons of things.
I wonder if you can combine the 40% off and 50% off for 90% off? Then again, my items is $3, so I don't care.
I'm guessing some random person put up the "relax" sign; that doesn't seem official.
I love these chips and salsa from the Mexican grocery store. They're really hot, though, so I can only eat so many before my mouth is burning.
Some kid came by selling chocolate bars. Usually I'll buy a Snickers or something, but this time it was something I'd never seen before. It was amazing, though; I have to find more somewhere.
Playing some cash poker online. A7 might be good here, but I'm sure not paying 3/4 pot to see, especially with a J there.
Straight on the board and neither of us had anything.
I raised and bet, bet, bet. The ace and spades were a bit scary, but apparently nobody had them.
I folded, and then the river came a 3 for a full house on the board. Any pair bigger than a 3 would win, but otherwise it would be chopped.
I raised pre-flop, checked, bet, and then checked. Maybe could have played it differently, but the KK and the diamonds were scary.
I called a raise pre-flop, checked, then bet and bet again when the kings came, acting like I had one. It worked.
I raised pre-flop, bet on the flop, checked on the turn, then bet again on the river. Everything was well played except the final river bet, which he wasn't folding to with two pair.
I called a flop bet and then shoved on the turn with a pot-sized bet, trying to represent the A. He didn't believe me, and had a pair and a flush draw, so it didn't work out.
I raised, there were four callers to the flop. The other guy bet on the flop, I called, and everyone else folded. He went all-in for just a little more on the turn and I called and won. Maybe a bit loose of me; any K or T had me crushed.
I raised pre-flop, then bet about 75% of the pot on every street and the opponent called every one. Big pot.
I bet on the flop and everyone folded. Good thing; I bet at least someone had the A that would have come on the turn.
I bet on the flop and then bet $3 more on the turn which put him all-in and he called. I'm ahead of a lot of things here, but any pair has me beat.
Yeah, that's a good turn card for AA.
Same cards.
I didn't get a screenshot of the board, but I had QJ, the flop was J86, and I lost to AA. Thankfully the opponent only had $7.50; I could have lost a lot more.
I bet on the flop with a pair and an inside straight draw, but there was a raise, a re-raise, and a call. Bottom pair doesn't look so good after that, so I folded.
I was actually ahead of everyone on the flop with my pair, but the A6 hit his open-ended straight draw, so I would have lost. Good fold, I think; even though I had the best hand on the flop, against 3 people, it's probably still going to lose.
I called very small flop and turn bets and then bluffed on the river representing the flush; both opponents folded.
I checked flop, bet on the turn with bottom pair, and the opponent folded. It was a pretty thin bet, but if he would have stayed for the turn, he probably would have lost more, so good fold.
I bet the flop, checked the turn, and bet the river with a complete bluff and the opponent folded.
Great board for low cards; one made a straight and one made a full house.
I bet the minimum on the turn and the river and the opponent folded.
I bet on the flop, he min-raised, and I called. The same thing happend on the turn and the river. I would have folded the river if I wouldn't have caught a diamond or a 5, but I got lucky there.
They're betting 50 cents into a $7 pot; I don't think so.
The bad news: I didn't make my straight, and I lost. The good news: I didn't make my flush, because I would have lost a lot more.
It's nice to flop a full house, but it's hard to make any money off of it.
A giant hamburger on top of Carl's Jr.
Ozzie Dots was having a $1 sale.
People were loading up on clothing, but we didn't see anything we needed.
This guy was backing up and accidentally hit the gas instead of the break. He came up onto the sidewalk and took out a metal barrier. Thankfully he missed the older gentleman who was sitting on the stool to watch shoppers. Got a flat tired and a decent dent and scratch on his bumper, but his wheel seemed OK.
The UPS store put some cardboard around their metal door handle because it got really hot in the sun.
I don't think I like the colored trees.
This one is better.
We got a Douglas Fir. They also had Noble Firs, but their needles aren't as long so I don't like them. I read they're stronger so good for hanging heavier ornaments on, but they're more expensive. I'm glad I prefer the cheaper one.
Buying a tree at the self-checkout.
They didn't have tree stands, though, so I ran to Home Depot to get one of those. There were a ton of people buying trees there, too.
The line wrapped around the corner.
This guy was wrapping the trees up so they were easier to transport.
Ogii pulling the branches down.
That's a lot of needles.
Easy to sweep up, though. Right after this, I noticed the old couple who live above us and a younger man trying to push a huge cabinet up the stairs by our apartment because the elevator was broken. Ogii and I went out to help them because they were only halfway up and were already pretty tired. It was a pain getting it around the corners, but eventually we got it into their apartment. They wanted it in the bedroom, but because the ceiling was shorter, there was no way it was going to fit. We tried a couple of times but gave up once they realized it was hopeless and we moved it to the den instead. It's a good thing we helped; they would have never gotten it up there without us. If it were my cabinet, I think I would have just left it downstairs until the elevator got fixed.
That's not a good sign. I turned the computer off and back on and it was still there. Thankfully when I tried it again later it was fine. Scary.
A videogame party on Friday night.
Bomberman.
Mario Party.
Laughing.
Arguing that he shouldn't have died.
A winner celebrating.
Ogii getting blown up.
Three screens on this side and one TV behind me.
That Sunday was the LACOS CE meeting. Here is Candi introducing the first speaker.
We had a good turnout; right around 100 people.
Speaking about strabismus.
Talking with an attendee after her talk.
Some of the sponsors.
And another.
And another.
A speaker on retinal surgery. One of the sponsors invited me to a free CE seminar the next day and he turned out to be one of the speakers. He noticed me in the audience and mentioned that me setting up his computer on Sunday went smoother than the other person setting it up on Monday.
Speaking with a sponsor.
And another.
And another.
The last speaker on glaucoma.
The we had some of the COA staff come and have a Town Hall meeting to discuss various issues.
What everyone was waiting for: raffle prizes.
Another winner.
And the winner of the iPad mini.
Ogii had us take this picture by the tree.
She wrote "Merry Christmas" in Microsoft Paint, which looked pretty ugly, not to mention it takes a long time to write it out stroke by stroke.
So I made a better one in IrfanView, a slightly more powerful picture editing program.
She wanted it bigger and without the paintings above us, though, so time to bring out the big gun: Photoshop.
A perfect wrapping job by Ogii.
A crash near our apartment. No rain to blame on this one, just lots of traffic.
A bike with long handles.
The guy who helped us at the UPS store was wonderful, so I filled out this great experience form UPS has online.
The guy who originally registered the LACOS domain didn't forward the information through the different webmasters we had, so we had no way to update it. He finally tracked one down who forwarded it to me, but only after the domain had expired. So we had to pay an extra $80 to recover it. Would have been cheaper and easier to just do it before it expired, but at least we can still do it.
That's a lot slower in the other direction.
Aw man, no way I can save that knight, and he's so much higher than me in rank, I probably couldn't come back from being a knight down, so I resigned. Only afterwards did I notice I could have just moved my rook to protect it because the knight was protecting the pawn. Oh well, next time.
A fairly standard opening.
But I messed it up and gave up a free pawn, sigh.
He can't take my knight because his pawn is pinned to his queen by my bishop.
Bad place to put his queen; now I get his rook for my knight.
For some reason he moved his queen to where I could simply take it after taking his rook. Weird.
A queen vs two rooks is a fun ending. I think theoretically the two rooks should win, but it's hard either way.
I managed to checkmate him first, though.
Google Navigation says it's a little faster to take La Cienega...
... than I-105. However, I have a FasTrak for the highway, which Google doesn't take into account, so the highway is actually faster.